“Eh?” Hal pushed his hand over his forehead and turned to her. “I don’t hear any one,” he said, “and it wouldn’t be him yet; the roads ain’t safe before dark nowadays.”
Anny sat still for a moment.
“There is someone,” she cried, as a tumbril drawn by a piebald gelding turned into the yard.
Hal stepped across to the window and looked out over the girl’s head.
“Oh! ’tis Cip de Musset,” he said, as the man in the tumbril climbed out and pushed back the oiled flaps of his head-covering from his face. “I warrant he brings the rum from the brig.” He opened the door and went out bare-headed into the yard.
Anny watched him through the window, saw him greet the man heartily, and then look into the cart at the other’s invitation.
“Right!” she heard him say, “six of rum and three of Canary. Here, John Pattern.”
A man came out of one of the stables. Hal said something to him which she could not catch. The man nodded and led the horse into a corner of the yard, where he proceeded to unload the cart.
The man of whom Hal had spoken as Cip de Musset was tall, long-legged, and loosely built, with a black beard which curled down onto his chest. He stepped up to the inner door with Hal, and then stopped and went back to the cart as though he had forgotten something. After groping under the sacking coverings for a while he pulled out a fair-sized bundle tied up in a piece of sail-cloth, and with this under his arm, came back to the door where Hal was waiting for him. As he crossed the yard he caught sight of Anny peering through the window and smiled at her, showing a set of enormous yellow teeth.
Anny tossed her head and turned away from the window, and picking up the two candlesticks carried them off to the first guest-chamber where they belonged.